Title: Priorities
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek TOS
Pairing: Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Summary: A short vacation piece for the trio.
A/N: This is dedicated to romennim, whose birthday is today! Happy Birthday, my dear! Here is a little piece, a trifle of a sweet moment between our boys. :) I want to say thank you for being my friend this past year—and I hope our friendship continues for many, many years to come. <3.

Days like this McCoy wishes would last forever. He sinks farther into his lounge chair, crosses his ankles, and tips a straw hat down over his face for shade. The planet isn’t particularly different than the many others the doctor has visited (away-mission related or otherwise), but it affords him a measure of peace today and in several days past—and Leonard isn’t foolish enough to pass that up.

He knows that he needs to go inside soon, having stayed out in this bright sunlight longer than either of his companions. The sun has passed its peak in the sky and everything under it—Leonard McCoy included—has warmed to just this side of unpleasantly hot. Yes, in a few more minutes he’ll go in, the man decides lazily, once the ice in his glass is completely melted. Then he can retire to the cool bungalow and see about foraging for a meal.

He enjoys a quiet solitude on the patio, letting his old bones soak up sun.

Jim is confined to the indoors, under strict orders by Leonard to rest in their curtain-drawn room not long after the younger man had begun to display clear signs of an impending headache. Too much heat is an easy trigger of Jim’s migraines, despite Kirk’s protest that he isn’t a wilting flower. On the other hand Leonard, hailing from the Earth’s Old South, can boast that he is a stalwart trooper against heat.

Of course, if Leonard is a trooper, Spock is an entire army unto himself, with the ability to bask in scorching heatwaves while remarking that Vulcan is (indeed) much hotter, much dryer, and how fascinating, the way humans complain of simple sunshine.

Hence Leonard has banished Jim from the patio for the sake of Kirk’s health and, subsequently, banished Spock for the sake of his own sanity. It can be trying, at times, having these two men in his life. Yet he loves them no less than the day he realized that he did, in fact, love them very much.

A few minutes draw nearer to a half hour, and Leonard has fallen into a light doze, only roused when a hand gently presses upon his shoulder. The doctor starts with a snort and tilts his hat back to glare at the person interrupting his midday nap.

Spock removes his hand from McCoy’s shoulder and places it behind his back. “Your skin will burn in another five point two minutes” Leonard is duly informed.

“I’m fine,” he argues back, still somewhat drowsy. “Imma doctor.”

Spock says nothing of McCoy’s silly excuse. He simply retrieves Leonard’s glass of warm water and plucks up Leonard’s hat. Hat tucked under his arm, Spock glides away, leaving behind a surprised Leonard to cry, “My hat—you took my hat! SPOCK!”

It takes two attempts to make McCoy’s stiff muscles cooperate enough that he can rise from his low seating. By the time Leonard limps into the bungalow, he is feeling slightly ornery and put-out for having his lay-about in the sun cut short by a fussy Vulcan.

Instead of finding Spock, he spies Jim spread out long-ways on a couch, bare feet propped on a pillow at one end, reading. “Hey, Bones.” Kirk doesn’t bother to look up from his book at Leonard’s approach.

“I thought I told you to go to bed.”

“I did,” says the other man. “I napped and then Spock woke me up. Apparently it’s time for us humans to eat.”

At the mention of the hat thief’s name, Leonard riles. “That cockamamie walking calculator! He took my hat, Jim!”

Jim finally peeks at Leonard over the rims of his reading glasses. “Ah. So you were napping, too.” He sounds amused. Then his eyes narrow contemplatively. “You’re red. Sunburn?”

Leonard doubts it is sunburn coloring his cheeks. He gives Jim one last piqued look for good measure and strides to the kitchen area. He is making another glass of water—loudly—when Spock reappears.

“Greetings, Leonard.”

McCoy slams the ice cube tray onto the countertop with two vicious whacks. Ice chips fly. “Where’d you put my hat?” The question comes out more childish-sounding than he had intended.

“The hat will be returned to you in due course.”

“It’d better be,” he grumps. Relaxing against the kitchen counter, he sips some water, sighs, and feels less irritable. “So what’s this about food?”

“Are you hungry?”

Leonard’s stomach rubbles before he can answer. He chuckles. “I suppose I am.”

“I have scheduled a dinner reservation in town.”

“A’right. Let me change. Jim!” McCoy leans over the counter and calls again for Jim in the living room situated around the corner. “Food!”

He deliberately brushes close to Spock in passing, enjoying the way Spock automatically reaches out to touch the small of his back in response. Kirk comes trailing around the other side of the kitchen counter, eyes wide behind his glasses.

“Food?” echoes Kirk.

Leonard snorts. “And here I was, thinkin’ a decent shore leave might change your priorities, Jim-boy.”

Kirk steps up to the chest-high counter and leans on his elbows, removing his glasses. (Leonard is a bit sad to see them go; admittedly, he harbors a minor kink for Jim in glasses.) Then Jim smiles charmingly, his eyes taking on that melting quality that makes all of the yeomen aboard the Enterprise turn to puddles, and says, “Right now, Bones, I have few but high-ranking priorities—and shore leave grants me time to address them all, quite thoroughly.”

Lord, but he is getting infirm in his old age—his knees are wobbly. “We’re going to dinner,” McCoy manages. “Spock made reservations.”

Kirk makes a low rumble in his chest. “After dinner, then.”

“After dinner, what?” He’s not only wobbly but breathless, too.

“We’ll discuss those other… priorities.”

Leonard scuttles away quickly, to save his dignity if nothing else. He retrieves a clean outfit, just a button-down shirt and light-colored pants, and showers in the bathroom, inspecting the skin along his arms and legs for signs of sunburn where he had not been covered sufficiently from the sun. Overall, he has lost the paleness that comes from being in space for an extended length of time and has a nice tan developing (courtesy of his momma’s genes). What would Jim think if he suggested sunbathing in the nude? To get rid of pesky tan lines?

Snickering at the thought, Leonard dresses, puts on his favorite cologne, and decides to leave the first three buttons of his shirt undone. He hates collars, feels confined by them; his damned formal ‘Fleet uniform has the worst collar yet, a sight Jim finds infinitely humorous when Leonard tugs at it and grouches.

Finally satisfied that his presentation says on vacation and loving every minute of it, McCoy exits the bathroom in search of Jim and Spock. Of course, upon discovering them, he has to stutter, “I thought—but what about—you said dinner!”

Jim doesn’t look the least bit contrite as he stops biting at a shirtless Spock’s neck to reply, “Oops.”

Spock carefully extracts one of Kirk’s hands that had been trapped somewhere between their flush bodies. “We became distracted,” explains the Vulcan with surprising calm for a man almost bent backwards over a kitchen counter. “Jim, I estimate that neither you nor Leonard have eaten in—”

Jim halts this announcement by thunking his head onto the Vulcan’s chest for a brief second before pushing away from Spock. The man sighs gustily, then bemoans in mock-drama, “What happened to endless hours of making love?”

Leonard, tickled, reels Jim in for a quick kiss. “That was before you hit the age of 45, Jim. A smart man balances sex with food and sleep.”

Jim turns a quick kiss into a longer affair. Leonard has a feeling he is about to be convinced that food isn’t necessary and air—even less so. Except Kirk releases him at last and turns away, asking in resignation, “Where are my shoes?”

Spock presents the missing pair of sandals (Leonard thinks Jim has an unhealthy obsession with sandals) like pulling a rose from thin air. Jim takes them with a grin and trots over to the nearest chair to put them on. Leonard says to Spock, “Looks like we’ll make that reservation after all.”

Spock is still shirtless. “A reservation can be rearranged for a later occasion—or cancelled.”

Leonard considers Spock for a moment before turning to catch Jim shooting him little peeks from under ridiculously long lashes. The doctor says ruefully, “I’m outvoted, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” answers the Vulcan. “Perhaps it is prudent to mention that I procured food in the event we would not use the dinner reservation.”

Outvoted and apparently double-teamed.

Jim’s hands are now sliding along his back, rubbing, coaxing McCoy to relax. “Spock’s an excellent planner,” murmurs Kirk against Leonard’s neck, lips brushing over short, fine hairs.

Leonard gives in, with Kirk pressed against his back, and holds out a hand to draw Spock closer. Leonard is on the verge of losing his complete presence of mind when he has a sudden flash of understanding.

The doctor asks sharply—at least he tries to sound sharp but it might come out as a whimper instead, “Spock didn’t wake us up for food, did he?”

The sound of Kirk’s laughter is a rumble along McCoy’s spine. Then Jim nips his earlobe. “He definitely didn’t.”

Spock, the sneaky bastard, merely entwines one of Leonard’s hands with his own and uses his free fingers to unbutton the rest of McCoy’s shirt. Not that Leonard is complaining; he’s far past that point. Later, though, he’ll remember to say something about—sweet Jesus—whatever it is—oh, right there!—he ought to be irritated about.

Much, much later.

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